Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is slamming Sen. John McCain for criticizing Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, saying it’s “sad” for someone who was once known as a maverick in Congress. “What I find sad about Sen. McCain’s recent comments both to Ted Cruz, when Ted Cruz was frankly raising legitimate questions [about Benghazi] and with Rand Paul, is, you know, when I first knew John McCain in the House — he was a maverick. In the Senate, for years, he was a maverick,” Gingrich said Thursday on Fox News.
He continued: “Of everybody I know in the Senate, I didn’t know anybody who had a better record of bucking the leadership, doing what he thought mattered, marching to his own drummer. And I think that it’s unfortunate. But I think frankly it doesn’t hurt Ted Cruz and it doesn’t hurt Rand Paul — it hurts John McCain. The country is moving on, we’re in a new era, people know that these are legitimate questions.”
McCain criticized Paul on Thursday, calling the Kentucky Republican’s’s nearly 13-hour filibuster questioning the White House on its domestic drone policy a “disservice.” McCain has also sparred with Cruz, a freshman tea partier with a reputation in the Senate for being outspoken.
